The nephew of François Mitterrand, the former president, he also notes in "La Récréation" that he thought Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, might be "gay-friendly" and that Manuel Valls, France's interior minister who was born in Spain, is "a handsome Iberian hidalgo".

The "handsome Iberian hidalgo" Manuel Valls (AFP)

The 720-page book provides a witty behind-the-scenes look at the Sarkozy government during the openly gay Mr Mitterrand's three years in office from June 2009.

The former minister is struck by the "physical beauty" of then prime minister François Fillon and fantasises about another minister, Laurent Wauquiez.

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"He really is a handsome bloke, the type that you look at in the changing rooms and talk about girls with when maybe you're really thinking about something else." He meets Bashar al-Assad during an official trip to Syria in 2010. He finds him "a tall, friendly chap, open, curious about everything It wouldn't take much to make him 'gay-friendly'".

He writes that IMF chief Christine Lagarde, then Mr Sarkozy's finance minister, was on more than one occasion obliged to lead him away from her bodyguards.

The long list of men that Mr Mitterrand lusted after forms only part of the book that consists of the notes that he jotted down as he went about ministerial duties.

The minister, an author, actor and TV presenter, presents few secrets about Mr Sarkozy's regime - he does claim that the former president hated the cabbage soup Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, liked to make for him - and has mostly kind words for the conservative president who appointed him.

It was an earlier book, La Mauvaise Vie (The Bad Life), that landed Mr Mitterrand in trouble during his term in office. He had written the memoir, which details his visits to Asian male brothels, years before his appointment as minister.

It was only when far-right Front National leader Marine Le Pen resurrected it and called for his resignation that a scandal erupted.

But Mr Mitterrand went on primetime TV news to defend himself, saying that none of the men he had paid for sex were minors, and managed to ride out the storm.